Old brutality lingers on in the Cape winelands
Boland on edge as horrific attack on boy comes to court
FLIPPIE Engelbrecht sits outside his family’s hillside shack, which commands a sprawling view of Robertson and the jutting teeth of the Langeberg. He cannot see the landscape, but he can hear the Engelbrecht rooster having cacophonous sex with a hen. “The rooster’s doing his thing,” chuckles Engelbrecht. “We can’t control him.”
The 19-year-old’s sense of humour is undefeated by his blindness, his epilepsy and the amputation of his hands.
This week he received a pair of mechanical hands, donated by prosthetics maker Richard van As. On Thursday morning, Engelbrecht was delighted to brush his own teeth for the first time in years.
But he and his parents, Flip and Katrina, are not at peace. A long battle looms for the family.
Their allegation of grievous assault against Robertson valley wine farmer Johnny Burger has sent a tremor through the Boland. Unionists hope Engelbrecht’s case will help break patterns of exploitation; farmers fear that the trial will harm the image of a struggling industry that employs 275 000 people.
The state alleges that in 2008 Burger and his farm manager, Wilhelm “Dozi” Treurnicht, rammed then 15-year-old Engelbrecht’s head against a wine tank, inflicting a skull base fracture that caused his epilepsy. The attack allegedly took place during a fight with Engelbrecht’s father, who worked for Burger.
An operation after the attack saved Engelbrecht’s life, but cost him his sight. About four years later, his hands were amputated after being burnt when he fell into a cooking fire during a seizure.
“It caused the family so much pain,” said Flip Engelbrecht. “We’re not going to give up this case. We’ll fight it to the very end. That man didn’t have the right to assault Flippie. He didn’t work for him.”
Burger denies assaulting Engelbrecht and any culpability for his plight. He met me in a reception room at Rietvallei Wine Estate, where six generations of Burgers glare from the walls. Burger strongly resembles his broad-faced ancestor JF Burger, who bought Rietvallei in 1864.
“I’m not guilty,” said Burger. “This is something you build up
He didn’t have the right to assault Flippie. He didn’t work for him
over 150 years,” he said, pointing at his gallery of ancestors. “You can’t break it over nonsense like this . . . We haven’t got money, but we’ve got history.”
His son Kobus, 38, alleges a conspiracy led by Carina Papenfus of the Freedom Trust, who has helped the Engelbrechts pursue the complaint.
“Let’s be honest, you pick up the paper and see this poor kid, handicapped for life. And it’s being portrayed as if it was done here. But if you look at the facts, it’s ridiculous — because what happened to this poor kid, when he lost his eyesight, it was because of a medical procedure and that was at least a year or two after his father left our employment.”
But the Engelbrechts will testify that the blindness and epilepsy began within days of the assault. Flip and Katrina Engelbrecht are tormented by their son’s helplessness.
“It makes me very heartsore, because Flippie doesn’t want me to take him to the toilet or bathe him,” said Katrina. “He prefers his older brother or his father to do that. But often we’re alone and then I must do those things for him.”
In a brief appearance last week in the Ashton Regional Court, Burger was warned not to contact 10 witnesses to the alleged assault. An assistant farm manager who allegedly participated in the attack has turned state witness. The defendants will appear again on August 28.
Some locals say Burger has a reputation for assaulting workers in fits of rage. Two of his older employees — who were summoned by him to speak to me — denied this. “He makes a bit of a noise,” said Sophie Beekman, whose ancestors lived on the farm before the Burgers arrived. “He speaks loudly, but he doesn’t swear or be ugly.”
Burger’s lowest-paid workers pay him R200 a month rent. Prepaid electricity costs about R200 a month, which leaves about R1 600 for food, clothing and wine, even after the recent spike in the minimum wage. There is no surplus for building a better future — and no mental horizon beyond the farm gate.
Most state-funded transfers of equity to workers had failed to generate change, said Boland ANC chairman Pat Marran. “The old management stayed in charge, and you would argue these farmers have years of experience of how to run a farm successfully. But I can tell you in the Hex River Valley all of them failed and were sold.”
With labour costs rising and margins shrinking, some leading farmers are threatening to mechanise and lay off more workers — a move that would worsen the situation. It is easy to say with hindsight, but farmers and unions should have invested in worker skills during the industry’s boom years, a decade ago.
Many Cape wine farmers do care about their labourers’ welfare, and many do not beat them. Several ventures have improved labour conditions over the past decade. But Flippie Engelbrecht’s story is far from an isolated case, and too many farmers have failed to reinvent their farms as places of dignity, mobility and hope.
Old wine and old ways are all very well, but old brutality is a bitter vintage.